What are the chances, really, of Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin—two of the most significant, paradigm-shifting, transformative figures of the 19th century—being born on exactly the same day? Astrologists might say, “quite good.” On the other hand, consider these other “birth twins”: Margaret Thatcher and comedian Lenny Bruce. Or even more entertaining: Newt Gingrich and Barry Manilow.
So we probably shouldn’t draw too much significance from the fact that Lincoln and Darwin shared the same birthday, or that today marks the 200th anniversary of the day both of them were born. On the other hand, it does provide an excuse to take another look at how these two influential men went about pursuing different but equally uncertain, audacious and important endeavors.
Both Darwin and Lincoln were breaking new ground, without much of a road map to tell them exactly how to get there. And I doubt either one of them foresaw, at the beginning, exactly where their paths were going to lead them. But their challenges and methods were dramatically different.
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Two days ago, a 56-year-old woman named Jennifer Figge from Aspen, Colorado set foot on dry land in Trinidad, becoming the first woman to ever swim the span of the Atlantic Ocean.
That’s an amazing feat of determination and endurance, no matter who does it. But to undertake it at 56? By comparison, 41-year-old Olympic silver medalist Dana Torres looks like a fresh-faced youngster in the sport. So much for the “I’m too old” or “Well, I’m not 30 anymore. What do you expect?” excuses for any of the rest of us. It’s probably no coincidence that both feats were in swimming, which allows an athlete to train hard without impact stress or strain on not-quite-so-young-anymore joints. But, still.
One report said Figge trained in an outdoor pool, even in blizzards, to toughen herself up for swimming in rough conditions, and that her training regime was intense enough to cause her to vomit two or three times a day in the course of her workouts. Reports also say that in the Atlantic crossing, she battled eight-foot swells at times. I’ve kayaked in 6 to 8-foot swells, and that’s no picnic. I can’t imagine swimming through them and not collapsing in exhaustion and frustration within half an hour.
But reading about Figge’s effort also brought a couple of other thoughts to mind:
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The official origins of Groundhog Day, I’m told, lie in the ancient Celtic holiday of Imbolc, celebrating the beginning of the spring birthing season, and the Christian celebration of Candlemas, halfway between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox. But for many of us, the meaning of “Groundhog Day” was never the same after the release of Bill Murray’s classic movie by that title in 1993. It has become the symbol of a banal but intolerable and insanity-producing nightmare … or maybe just the curse of getting what you wish for.
We may fear too much uncertainty or unpredictability in our lives. But Murray’s film showed us the alternative: a world where nothing was uncertain or unpredictable, as Murray’s character found himself stuck reliving the very same events and day, over and over and over again. At one point, he even attempts suicide to escape the torture of a life that is never, ever uncertain. Which is to say, be very careful what you wish for. Because reality isn’t always as good as the fantasy.
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I’m something of a coward when it comes to reading tragic books or watching tragic movies. Perhaps it’s because, as a pilot who’s lost 25 friends in airplane accidents (due largely to knowing a lot of high-risk flyers, including test pilots, air racers, and aerobatic performers), or as a woman who’s survived and fought my way back from my own near-fatal car wreck, I’ve seen enough of loss and grief. I don’t need to seek it out. So while Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking—a book that chronicled her “Annus Horribilis” following the death of first her husband and then her daughter—was critically acclaimed, I couldn’t quite muster the courage to read it.
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Just a note about one lighthearted resource for anyone recently out of work. Parts of No Job? No Prob!: How to Pay Your Bills, Feed Your Mind, and Have a Blast When You’re Out of Work, by Nicholas Nigro sound awfully trite and silly. And parts of it are.
But my sense, in a quick read, is that Nigro is trying to help people avoid the paralysis that often comes when the structure that propels our days forward abruptly disappears. Standing at the edge of an unmarked landscape, it’s easy … even common … to become so overwhelmed at the immensity of the open time and space, and the lack of any guide or direction, that you freeze. Or, more accurately, disappear into an unproductive black hole of television watching or internet surfing. And objects at rest tend to stay at rest. The inertia builds. And it gets harder and harder to get moving again.
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I was struck, watching the wide and varied coverage of Barack Obama’s inauguration today, by one particular segment on “The News Hour with Jim Lehrer” on PBS.
Gwen Ifill was interviewing people on the Mall who’d come to witness the event. One person she talked to was an African-American woman named Eugenia Pete, from Tulsa, Oklahoma. Ifill asked Pete why the day was so emotional for her. “I have a little boy,” Pete told Ifill, fighting back tears. “He can—he can do what he wants to do. He don’t have to be just a rap star or basketball player, you know? He can do it. The sky is truly the limit now.”
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As Barack Obama’s inauguration nears, there’s a groundswell of excitement sweeping the country. It’s on the news; in the papers. “Change is coming to America!” The nation’s first African-American (or multi-racial, if you prefer) President. A new era. A new day.
It’s an interesting counter-point to the past few months of worry about changes we’re far less happy about (see: economy). But what does that mean? To conclude only that there are some changes we like, and others we don’t, would be a vast oversimplification of a very complex and nuanced dance.
In many ways, humans struggle with change—regardless of whether we’re coping with external changes in the world or attempting personal changes in our habits, fitness, or lives. And yet … we don’t always fear or resist change. We sometimes hope for it. Crave it. Work for it. Which means, at the very least, that our views about change are not simple, or easily reduced to a convenient sound-bite. It also means that change itself comes in many variations, forms, and guises.
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In last Sunday’s New York Times, I found another wonderful take on this new year of uncertainty by Bono (leader of the Irish rock band U-2). Called “Notes from the Chairman,” it’s a lyrical essay about the pull between hope and fear and the wisdom one can glean about coping with life’s complexities and uncertainties from the music of Frank Sinatra.
Two points I found particularly interesting:
First, the idea that Sinatra’s voice and expressive talent—like that of numerous other musicians—improved as he got older. “Interpretive skills generally gain in the course of a life well abused,” Bono says. Which is perhaps another way of saying that although we love the times when all is well, we gain far more wisdom, depth, compassion and understanding through times that try our souls. There are jewels to be found in the darkness of a mine, and stars whose brightness we only begin to appreciate in the absence of the sun.
Second, I liked what he said about the power of jazz coming from its complete immersion in a particular moment of music, never to be repeated again. “Fully inhabiting the moment during that tiny dot of time after you’ve pressed ‘record’ is what makes it eternal,” Bono says. “If, like Frank, you sing it like you’ll never sing it again. If, like Frank, you sing it like you never have before.”
Jazz isn’t about knowing what’s coming next, or hitting the notes precisely and predictably, time after time. It’s about losing yourself in a moment of music that—intentionally—will never be repeated exactly the same way again. It’s about improvising. Being flexible and creative. And, by embracing unpredictability instead of fighting it, being able to be joyful and fully alive in whatever moment you’re in.
Worth noting, as we head into a year more unpredictable than most.
A new year. Ten days into a new beginning. One more circle around the sun. The celebration of the western New Year on January 1st is a relatively new phenomenon—the Romans didn’t even include January and February in their calendar until 713 B.C., and the “new” year, which coincided with the start of the new consular term, wasn’t switched from March 15 (the infamous “Ides of March”) to January 1st until 153 B.C. England only changed its recognition of the new year from March 25 (the Annunciation, or conception of Jesus) to January 1st in 1752.
But the concept of a New Year, and all the clean-sheet, start-over possibility it entails, is almost universal. Even the Aztec calendar symbol for the post-winter-solstice period, which coincided roughly with the Aztec new year, meant “stretching for growth.”
And in theory, we love that idea of a new year “do-over” with fresh possibilities for change and growth. We wipe our brows with collective relief at the ending of what we can no longer change, and determine to remake ourselves and our lives in the new dawn of day. This year will be better. We will lose weight. Sleep more. Find balance. Be happy. Succeed. And we make these resolutions with cheery wishes of optimism, and big smiles upon our faces.
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My understanding of the true nature of adventure came to me at about 9,000 feet, somewhere over Nebraska. I was huddled in the navigator’s station of a meticulously restored World War II B-17 bomber, dressed in all the long underwear, wool sweaters and socks I could layer on myself, wrapped in a sleeping bag I’d dragged out of the back of the airplane, and I was still colder than I’d ever been in my life.
I’d actually worked very hard to wrangle a seat on board the restored bomber for its ferry flight from a museum in Minnesota to California. This despite the fact that I knew the flight was going to take place in the middle of winter. And despite the fact that I also knew, from painful first-hand experience, that Minnesota did winter like few other places on Earth. But with my rose-tinted view of adventure at the time—and sitting in the comfort of my nice, heated living room—the weather seemed a minor factor. This trip was going to give me a chance to touch the past in high-flying, Walter Mitty style—to live out a romantic adventure few people ever have the opportunity to experience.
So filled with the enthusiasm of Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart, Edmund Hillary and all the great explorers, I packed joyfully for the journey. The trip would be magical. It would be memorable. And it would be … a grand adventure.
But as I sat shivering in the sub-zero skies over Nebraska, I found I wasn’t thinking about adventure, magic or any poetic connections with the past. My mind was far more focused on thoughts of hot coffee, a long vacation in the sub-tropics, and even a peculiar sense of longing for my heated, comfortable living room back home. I was also thinking some highly unkind thoughts about the authentic but hollow machine gun barrels mounted in the nose section, which were now blasting sub-zero air on me at 150 miles an hour.
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